Blog by Aimee Weaver

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Front Entry {Before & After}

Over the years, we’ve slowly worked on improving the exterior of our home, although most of the time I feel like I still don’t know what I’m doing!

A few years ago I painted our front door red. Here’s what it looked like BEFORE:

And here’s what it looks like TODAY:

Hubs built these pretty window boxes for me for my birthday this year. Excuse how small the flowers look in them! They’re still in the beginning stages of growing.

Sometime in the near future, we’d like to add shutters to the windows to add some more character to the front of the house. It’s on the loooooong project list! You know how that goes. We had a loooong project list when we moved in five years ago, and it seems like the list never gets shorter!

I painted the “No. 39” onto the door using the same method that I use for painting signs – using carbon paper and craft paint.

Our house is a very traditional-looking brick American Colonial. It’s not exactly the style I would prefer (I’m in love with cottage-y looking homes), but I’m discovering there are things I can do to “cozy-it-up” and keep it from looking too traditional.

Some things we’ve done to add the “cottage” look:

:: Removed traditional-looking (ugly) shrubbery and planted flowers that look more casual, like hydrangeas and roses.

:: Painted the front door.

:: Added window boxes.

:: Planted small flowering trees.

:: Painted house number on front door.

:: In the works – Add shutters to windows.

It’s been a work-in-progress, but we’ve learned a lot and enjoy playing in the dirt!

Your front door looks great, or better may I say. 😉 You've done a great job of making it look cottagey. I love hydrangeas! My brother-in-law just took some old leuvered white chippy shutters off an old schoolhouse and he has them for sale. Don't know what you are looking for.

Hi Aimee,Really like the changes so far!I was wondering what the rule is about color on the front door and color on the shutters. Does the front door have to match the shutters? Right now ours does and we recently purchased shutters for the whole house so they've got to stay the way they are but I wanted a front door change from the present burgundy. Am I stuck with the same color?-D

D – good question! I'm not really sure about the rule of matching front doors and shutters, although I typically don't follow rules anyway!! 🙂 I wasn't sure what color we should paint the shutters either, but I was leaning towards red. If I were you, I wouldn't be afraid to paint your front door a different color. Go for it!!